Labour of love

Skived off again today. The grand plan was to do a ton of reading at home, but predictably, I got distracted by my bread baking endeavours and by my kids, who are still having their term break. Bread-wise, I started making the starter at seven last night, and did the mixing at ten this morning. The time was three in the afternoon when it was all done:




Labour of love, or wot??

The real labour of love is tring to ignore the hatred my offspring habitually display towards one another, holding myself back from urges of strangling them with my bare hands.

Examples of some of the ghastly things spewed from their cakeholes today:

O muttered under his breath, "It disgusts me to think that I am of the same blood as him..." and screamed "GET HIM AWAY FROM ME! HIS FOOT IS TOUCHING ME!!!!"

J screamed, "Why can't I be O! I want to be him! I HATE being me!" and later sobbed, "I love my brother but he hates me. He wants me to die."

It breaks my heart. I can't believe they really mean the stuff they said. But then again, I did say and wish some pretty horrible things upon my brothers when I was their age. The thing is, how do you deal with it? Ignore it? Reason with them? Make it compulsory for them to hug and kiss and hold hands? Punish them?

I would like to be able to respond to all this childish nastiness with witty but sardonic remarks. Sadly, I'm neither that quick nor witty. Most of the time I can only manage with a pathetic, "Do not say that!" God. It really is pathetic. Perhaps I should buy the Malcom in the Middle box set and learn a thing or two from Lois.